Landau Injury Law

In order to gauge the likely value of a case, the ABRAMS LANDAU team looks at a number of things, whether the client is involved in a car wreck, bicycle crash, slip and fall, dog attack or are injured due to a defective product, dangerous premises or other negligent conduct.  One of the best indicators is looking at jury verdict, mediation, arbitration and settlement amounts from similar cases in the same or similar jurisdictions.  This often requires Herndon Reston area injury lawyer Doug Landau use computer research.  Lauren Holtzman, shown here, utilizes the expensive Lexis-Nexus programs the firm pays for as well as other state, local and national sources.  We also look at our own, internal data in order to narrow the range of expected jury verdicts.  We also look at collectibility and assets in order to determine whether, once we win, we can economically collect compensation for our deserving clients.  

The trial team at ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd. get calls from all over the country from victims of negligence, assaults and permanent injuries.  We are often asked (or told) “there’s a formula to these cases, isn’t there ?”When a brain-injured client’s parent tells me, “My neighbor’s friend’s dentist said that you just multiply the medical bills times three and that’s what you get for settlement” it is hard to explain that this has no basis in reality.  If this was true, then the woman I represented who slipped, fell and then lost her ability to have children would not have been able to seek more than just her Emergency Room bills.  If there was a formula of “three times specials,” then my younger clients, who miss time from school, would not get fair compensation.   A homemaker or person who could not get medical care (i.e., no CT Scans, x-rays, heavy pain medications) because they are pregnant, would be treated unfairly.  And those people who seek out unethical lawyers and over treat or go to unscrupulous doctors, would be unjustly enriched.  So, there is no “magic formula.”  It would not work in the majority of our cases, and we do not apply it in setting our demands, amounts sought in court or accepted in settlement.  At our Herndon injury law shop, we try to help people with all kinds of injuries, losses and cases.  Every case is unique and special.   See tomorrow’s post for more information on how Doug Landau and the ABRAMS LANDAU team evaluates injury, disease and disability cases.

Here are some reasons Herndon Reston area injury lawyer Doug Landau or ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd. may advise a client that it is in their interests to enter a compromise settlement rather than risk a jury trial: 1. Time - you get compensation faster,2. Cost - you save on the expenses of trial,3. Emotional cost - you eliminate the uncertainty of trial,4. Patient-Physician relationship not subject to cross-examination, in public, causing your doctor to have doubts or unpleasantness,5. Privacy - “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” but what comes out in discovery or Court, does not always “stay put,”6. A jury may award you less,7. A jury may award you nothing,8. A judge may take away the jury’s verdict,9. The Defense may appeal the verdict, causing more time loss, expense and stress,10.  If the defendant or insurance company goes into bankruptcy, the proceedings are stayed and there is often more delay.

The Herndon, Virginia law firm Abrams Landau, Ltd., currently has pending dog attack cases involving children and adults in Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey. Doug Landau and the Trial Team were successful in 2007 in resolving cases for clients and families from Virginia, New Jersey and California. If you or someone you know has been the victim of an animal attack, please contact us at once. Delay in the investigation of these claims can be fatal to the case. On a recent “road trip” from Pennsylvania, Virginia Trial Lawyer Doug Landau took pictures and investigated several dog attack cases in the Middle Atlantic States.  [Shown here is the Hudson County Courthouse in New Jersey, where Doug Landau successfully advocates on behalf of clients attacked by dogs while in the course of their work for the Post Office and Police Department.]

Herndon-Reston Virginia injury lawyer Doug Landau and two dozen other experienced disability lawyers attended a special presentation by Commissioner William Dudley, Jr. today.  The Commissioner is one of only 3 Full Commissioners at the Virginia Workers Compensation Commission (”VWC”) headquarters in Richmond.  While he has over two decades of experience trying cases on behalf of injured workers and their families, Doug Landau attends these programs in order to stay abreast of current developments, and learn about the latest cases, rulings and trends.
The Abrams Landau, Ltd. trial lawyer has presented appeals before the Full Commission panel, upon which Commissioner Dudley sits.  This presentation by the learned judge was part of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association (VTLA) 49th Annual Convention and Continuing Legal Education (”CLE”) program.  Doug Landau is a member of both the Workers Comp AND the Social Security Disability Law Sections of VTLA and the American Association for Justice (which is the National Trial Lawyers Association).  Commissioner Dudley covered such topics as: Assault & Battery, streamlining Workers Comp procedures, comp rate, presumptions in brain injury and head injury cases, overtime, disease and disability, injured Virginia Workers rights, remedies and medical care.  ABRAMS LANDAU trial lawyer Doug Landau is shown here with Commissioner Dudley, and on his left, preeminent insurance defense attorney Ben Trichilo, of Fairfax, Virginia.

In this case, which arose as the result of a four-year-old child being attacked and mauled by a dog at his day care operator’s home, the Abrams Landau trial team’s ability to function in a number of jurisdictions was put to the test !..
Recently voted again as on of Virginia and Washington, D.C.’s “Super Lawyers” Doug Landau visited with the entire family at their church in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Landau was able to combine this visit, in a setting that would be comforting to the family, (more…)

It’s every working parents’ nightmare:  After dropping off a small child at day care, a call comes telling you that your child has been attacked and bitten by a big dog.
Herndon head and brain injury lawyer Doug Landau was contacted by a family from Virginia Beach who received just such a call.
After the child’s mother dropped her four year old son and his twin brother off at a friend’s house to play while she went to work.  The friend operated a day care which was open and operating at the time.  This young mother, whose husband is a major, currently serving in Iraq, got a call about an hour later telling her that the Day Care Center’s owner’s dog had mauled her son.  The anguished and frightened mother took her son to the emergency room and where he received 6 staples in his head.  The dog was not vaccinated (more…)

In the case of Sutherland v. Hartford Roman Catholic Dioceasan Corp., Doug Landau of ABRAMS Landau, Ltd. was asked to assist at the 24th hour in a case involving the molestation of a church altar boy.  The clergyman who was sought in connection with the case, had relocated to Virginia, and the Defendants did not want to reveal his whereabouts.  In a jurisdiction like Virginia, where dangerous dogs have to be registered, Herndon Injury Lawyer Doug Landau finds it inconceivable that a child molester would not have to register or give notice of his whereabouts.  And the fact that the Defendants sought to cover up this information is nothing short of shameful.  When the Court ordered that the Defendant’s whereabouts be shared with Plaintiff’s counsel, Landau was shocked to see that the address given was across the street from the public library where he has taken his own children and the Chantilly High School where they have attended many events.  The good news is that this case settled during trial.  The excellent Reardon Law Firm achieved a great result for this damaged client.  For details on other alter boy molestation cases handled by our friends and co-counsel in New London, Connecticut, please go to: Reardon Law Firm press release.

The Abrams Landau, Ltd. law firm was recently contacted by Connecticut counsel for emergency assistance in locating and serving a subpoena on a clergyman who had relocated to Virginia after molestation of young boys in Connecticut.  This was a rare civil trial involving a priest and a former altar boy, and as the trial began in Hartford, there were “signs that the case could provide explosive details about how the Catholic church has dealt with sex-abuse allegations.” according to the 2/29/08 Hartford Courant newspaper article..The Reardon Law Firm, of New London, filed a Motion for Issuance of a Commission to take the deposition of a named defendant in the case of Sutherland v. Hartford Roman Catholic Dioceasan Corp.  Imagine Herndon Injury Lawyer Doug Landau’s amazement when the address revealed after the Court’s Order was issued turned out to be across from the Public Library and the Chantilly High School !  Landau quickly mobilized several private investigators with whom the Abrams Landau trial team have worked in the past.  The case was followed by the press and the matter was settled at trial.  
.Doug Landau has worked with the Reardon Law Firm in the past.  In fact, Robert Reardon and the lawyers in his firm are currently working on behalf of several Abrams Landau clients’ cases including a dog attack and bite of a child and a head-on car crash on Interstate 95.  Herndon Injury Lawyer Doug Landau is shown in this picture with Robert Reardon at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), now known as the American Association for Justice, Annual Meeting. 

The Postal Employee’s action for damages arose out of a dog attack that occurred as our client was in the course and scope of his employment for the U.S. Postal Service. Mr. Landau’s client was placing mail in the mailboxes, when he saw a woman approaching with a dog on a leash. It appeared that the woman wanted access to the mailboxes, where the mailman was working. He moved toward the street, to avoid the woman and her dog. At this point, the woman approached his direction. When the woman and the dog were approximately (5) five feet away, the dog, unprovoked in any way by this uniformed Postal Employee, lunged at his face.

Mr. Landau’s client raised his arm to protect his face. The dog bit the man’s arm, through his winter jacket. At the time, this hard working man did not realize that he been bitten. The woman apologized and left the scene. Later that day, and while still working his route, this postal worker felt pain and saw blood dripping from his arm. He took off his jacket and was surprised to find (more…)